Chapter 3: The Hanged Man’s Waltz

The survivors awoke to the toll of a funeral bell, its mournful clang reverberating through the mansion’s rotting bones. Jin-soo’s head throbbed in time with the sound, the double pulse in his chest a relentless metronome. He sat up on the mildewed divan where he’d collapsed hours earlier, the remnants of the ballroom’s blue-flame candles still flickering behind his eyelids. The others stirred around him—Amara rubbing her temples, Viktor picking lint from his ruined suit, Sasha muttering under her breath as she traced symbols into the dust. Only Tomas lay still, his massive frame sprawled across a moth-eaten rug, his breathing shallow and wet.

Anya appeared in the doorway, her silver mask catching the weak dawn light filtering through cracked stained-glass. “Rise,” she commanded, her voice honeyed and hollow. “The Veil does not reward sloth.”

They followed her through corridors choked with cobwebs and the scent of decay. Portraits lined the walls, their subjects’ faces scratched out, leaving only hollow-eyed silhouettes. Jin-soo kept his gaze fixed on Anya’s back, the serpent-and-eye emblem on her robes shimmering faintly. He didn’t notice the floor shifting beneath his feet until the wood gave way to cracked marble.

The ballroom was a cathedral of ruin. Crystal chandeliers hung crookedly from the ceiling, their fractured prisms casting jagged shadows. A gramophone sat atop a grand piano, its brass horn rusted, the record spinning silently until Anya brushed a finger over it. The needle screeched, then settled into a waltz warped by time and malice.

“The Hanged Man’s Waltz,” Anya said, spreading her arms. “A dance of sacrifice Of surrender,

Choose a partner, or one will be chosen for you.”

Above them, nooses swayed from the rafters, their ropes frayed and stained.

The survivors scrambled. Viktor seized Amara’s wrist, his gold lighter glinting as he yanked her close. “Try not to step on my shoes,” he sneered.

She wrenched free but stayed silent, her camera swinging like a pendulum. Tomas lurched upright, coughing black bile into his palm, and Sasha pressed herself to his side, her shaved head barely reaching his shoulder. “Stay close,” he grunted, though his eyes were glassy, unfocused.

Lila stood apart, her arms wrapped around herself, fingers clutching at the empty space where her locket had been. Jin-soo hesitated, the double pulse in his chest quickening. Shadows pooled at the edges of the room, thickening into humanoid shapes—translucent, their necks bent at impossible angles, limbs contorted as if frozen mid-fall.

“Choose quickly, Doctor,” Anya purred, her mask tilting toward him.

He grabbed Lila’s hand. Her skin was ice.

“Why?” she whispered.

“I owe you,” he said, though the words tasted like ash.

The remaining survivors were not so lucky. A teenage boy—Jin-soo couldn’t remember his name—backed away, shaking his head, until a ghostly figure materialized behind him. Its fingers, skeletal and dripping seawater, closed around his shoulders. His scream cut off as his spine twisted, vertebrae snapping like kindling, his body mirroring the spirit’s broken posture.

The music swelled, the waltz’s tempo quickening.

Jin-soo guided Lila through the steps, her movements stiff, mechanical. The floorboards beneath them groaned, then vanished entirely, revealing a void filled with writhing shadows.

Whispers rose from the abyss, voices overlapping, suffocating:

“She died afraid… alone…”

“You promised…”

“The Veil sees you…”

Lila stumbled. “They’re in my head,” she gasped. “Min-ji… she’s crying. She’s scared.”

“Don’t listen,” Jin-soo said, tightening his grip.

Across the room, Viktor stepped on Amara’s foot, his lip curling. “Clumsy bitch,” he hissed.

“Go to hell,” she spat.

“We’re already here.”

A ghostly dancer lunged at Tomas, its jaw unhinging with a wet crack. He shoved Sasha aside, taking the blow. The spirit’s hand passed through his chest, and he collapsed, choking, black bile spilling from his lips.

“Tomas!” Sasha screamed, scrambling toward him, but the music accelerated, the waltz spiraling into a frenzied crescendo.

Lila’s foot struck something metallic. She glanced down, and Jin-soo followed her gaze—a tarnished locket glinted on the floor, Min-ji’s gap-toothed smile staring up through the cracked glass.

“Leave it!” Jin-soo hissed.

“No.” She tore free of his grasp, lunging.

The gramophone screeched. The music stopped.

Lila froze, the locket clutched in her hand. Her ghostly partner materialized behind her, its translucent fingers closing around her throat. It lifted her effortlessly, her boots kicking at empty air.

“No!” Jin-soo grabbed her legs, but the spirit’s strength was inhuman.

“It’s okay,” Lila choked, her eyes locked on the locket. “I’ll see her again.”

A noose dropped from the rafters. The ghost yanked her upward, knotting the rope around her neck with practiced ease.

Snap.

Her body swayed gently, eyes wide and unseeing. The locket slipped from her fingers, tumbling into the void below.

The survivors regrouped in the grand hall—sixteen now, their faces ashen. Jin-soo stared at his hands, the ghost of Lila’s weight still clinging to his palms.

“I could’ve saved her,” he muttered.

“No,” Sasha said, her voice hollow. She knelt beside Tomas, wiping black residue from his lips with her sleeve. “The Veil punishes mercy. It feeds on it.”

Viktor lit a cigar with his gold lighter, the flame casting hellish shadows across his face. “Sentiment gets you killed,” he said, blowing smoke toward Jin-soo. “Remember that, Doctor.”

Amara cornered Anya near the staircase, her camera raised. “Why sixty-six? What’s the point of all this?”

The priestess tilted her head, the weeping faces on her mask catching the light. “The Veil hungers,” she said simply. “It always has.”

That night, Jin-soo found the Hanged Man card under his pillow. The figure’s face, once a stranger’s, now bore his own features—eyes wide, mouth twisted in agony. He turned it over. The back was blank, save for a single word scrawled in blood:

SOON.

In the cracked mirror above the washbasin, his reflection stared back. Pale. Unshaven. Eyes sunken into bruised sockets.

Then it smiled.

“You’re next,” it mouthed, as the double pulse in Jin-soo’s chest stuttered, then fell into sync with the distant toll of the funeral bell.

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